Her Impossible Choice
by Lin'Dary
Summary: Mina contemplates her predicament. The fiery death of Ilona is described, thus the slightly higher rating. One-shot


How does one decide?

Some would say, "Follow your heart!"

Oh, sweet simplicity. How lovely such a world in which hearts desire logically and constantly. With the innocent indivisible devotion, they would hold but one object in their attraction with a measure of love in volume as the oceans and in hue as fresh rose blossoms. When love ended, they would break the tie with the smooth grace of a surgeon and clear quickly the memories, leaving them to the dusty attics of the head.

Within the bounds of this tangled earth, however, the heart is a fickle beast. It cannot keep faith with one obsession, and will not love in equal measure, nor in comparable shades. Attraction fades with the agonizing pace of melting ice shards, and bonds are clumsily cut as if by the shaking hand of a blind man.

How does one decide when the heart yearns for both?

The first is the sensible choice. He is a known quantity. I have loved him for years in the reds and pinks of playful romance that matures into marriage with the prompting of social expectations. There is no one I know more, or who knows me better. Of course there have been moments of quiet anger and terrifying silence, but always we have found our way back to the rightness of us.

But You. There is a gravity about You. It is a hypnotic tension between us that sings in my bones and makes me shiver. You are a curiosity; I am a cat, drawn inexorably to You. I can only hope the old saying is greatly exaggerated.

You are inescapable, even in sleep. I dream of You. They are not the soft blurs of color and sound that occupy charming fantasies, but dreams that are more like memories, each sense mimicked with perfection.

You have entered my room uninvited, and I struggle to find the words to send You away. You ask for my love, and I lie to You because I am afraid. But Your eyes - they are so horribly familiar, as if I have been studying them for hundreds of years. I cannot bear the sorrow that fills those glorious orbs at my denial. So when You pull away, I hold on. I spend the rest of the dream whispering the truth as Your slow kisses and gentle hands accept my apology.

This is no longer my home, but still I know it. The king sized bed is not mine, but it is soft beneath me, and warmth presses comfortably against my stomach. A fire crackles in the hearth at one corner of the stately room. You are there, head resting against me, and I stroke Your hair absently. Nothing has ever felt this way. It is so much more than simply meant to be.

A fire crackles again, but this time it becomes a growling roar. Heat overwhelms my skin, biting and tearing at my flesh. The flames are so intense, I can smell the heat, mingled with ash and the sickening smell of burning tissue. I try to run, but searing metal cuts into my wrists as I pull against chains. I try to scream, but the air is full of poison, and I cough uncontrollably. Over the mocking cackle of the flames, I hear someone else yelling though. You are there, and I can only just make You out, but I see You are fighting, kicking, screaming. Your eyes are filled with that sadness again, overshadowed by desperate rage. I want to reach out to You, but the flames consume and consume and I am failing quickly. I hear You call out a name. I think it is mine, but it somehow is unfamiliar. You shout again as the world fades to darkness.

I awake with a jolt, the sound of that name dancing elusively away into oblivion.

Why do I dream of You? I cannot possibly love You. We have met all of five times, and twice under suspiciously convenient circumstances. I am not so naïve as to believe in fairy tales. However, I suppose from our first meeting at Your house warming party, there was something between us. That strange sense of familiarity and tension that was easily swept away in the gilded, whirling skirts of the evening.

But when You held me, putting Yourself between me and the flying metal, it returned. That wonderful feeling of something the universe absolutely intended to happen.

When we danced before a crowd at the engagement party, time seemed to bend in around us. We had always done this. We would always do this - this dance of blood red ribbons binding wrists and necks and gazing eyes and I do not understand the emotions mirrored in Your eyes back into mine or maybe from my eyes into Yours, but we are dancing. In one infinite moment of red purple perfection, we are dancing. When he cuts in, I find I am surprised. He feels like the interloper, not You.

How does one decide? Between safety and passion, between comfortable and overwhelming, between attraction and obsession, between expectations and fate?

What do I do with these tumbling emotions in my head that leave me breathless, wanting, and terrified all at once?

How do I escape?

**AN: Let me have it.**


End file.
